Recently in Internet Updates Category

One year after Michael Gallucci was exposed as an anonymous and often-incendiary commentator on a Web site hosted by a New Jersey Internet service provider (“ISP”) with ties to 14 newspapers in the state, the former Teaneck, N.J., councilman filed a lawsuit in a Superior Court of New Jersey. The complaint, dated Feb. 5, 2007, claimed that the ISP’s release of his identifying information was unlawful under New Jersey law and in breach of the user agreement entered into by Gallucci when he first subscribed to the service provided by New Jersey-Online, LLC (“NJ.com”).

On March 26, 2007, a Lancaster County, Penn. coroner faced charges of unlawfully using a computer and conspiring with local reporters to gain access to confidential police information. Following an opportunity to hear testimony from some of the reporters who used County Coroner Dr. G. Gary Kirchner’s password to access a restricted county Web site, Manheim (Penn.) Magisterial District Judge John Winters ordered Kirchner to stand trial on felony charges brought by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office on Feb. 5, 2007.

Linda Walker, the mother of the late Dru Sjodin, a University of North Dakota college student murdered in 2003, joined members of the media and the executive director of the Jacob Wetterling Foundation at the Silha Spring Forum, “When Tragedy Strikes, What is the Media’s Role?” The forum, which was co-sponsored by the Minnesota Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the national SPJ, was held on April 24, 2007 at the University of Minnesota’s McNamara Alumni Center. It was scheduled to coincide with Ethics Week 2007, a week-long event sponsored by the SPJ to raise awareness of the media’s responsibility to minimize harm while reporting the news.